David Bellis, a British national who spent over 30 years in Hong Kong and founded Gwulo, an archive of old Hong Kong photos, has been awarded a British Empire Medal.
The UK government announced on Tuesday the 2025 New Year’s Honour list of the British Empire Medal, an honour established in 1922 for meritorious civil or military service.
David Bellis, the founder of the historical archive Gwulo. File Photo: Screen shot of Youtube channel Hong Kong History Centre.
Bellis was awarded the medal “for services of heritage preservation in Hong Kong,” according to the UK government.
Sharing the news on Gwulo’s website, Bellis said the award was a “lovely surprise” to start his new year of 2025.
“Thank you to all the contributors who have given their time and research to Gwulo. This award recognises all our work that has gone into building Gwulo into the resource that it has become,” Bellies wrote.
Founded in 2009, Gwulo is an online database archiving old Hong Kong photos. The current collection comprises of over 30,000 old photos, with the earliest one dating back to 1840.
The website of Gwulo. Photo: Screen shot of Gwulo website.
According to a report on Initium Media, the collection was the endeavour of Bellis and many volunteers, who helped research and collate photos, maps, memoirs and diaries, and information on historic buildings to build the archive.
Bellis bade farewell to Hong Kong last July. According to local media reports, he decided to return to the UK to take care of his mother and because his two daughters had decided to stay in the UK.
Bellis said he did not know who nominated him for the British honour.
“I like to think the nomination happened after King Charles was reminiscing about visiting Hong Kong, and found us after googling for family photos,” he said.
Gwulo hosts a photo of the royal visiting Hong Kong’s Excelsior Hotel in 1972. The hotel was demolished in 2020.
